1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to web browser software and in particular to the search results of web browsers. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to the processing of user inputs and search results of web browsers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet based search systems facilitate a user's ability to efficiently navigate through countless pages of information on the World Wide Web (the “Web”) in order to locate a desired website or set of websites. The Web runs on the Internet, which is the world's largest computer network. A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a web page of a website on the Web or on a local area network (LAN). In the web environment, web browsers are clients and web documents reside on (web) servers. A web browser opens a connection to a server in order to initiate a request for a document. Web browsers communicate with web servers primarily using the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) to submit information to web servers as well as fetch web pages from web servers. Following the server's delivery of a requested document, the web browser formats hyper-text markup language (HTML) information in order to display web pages. Text and images on a web page may contain hyperlinks to other web pages at the same website or at a different website. Each hypertext link is associated with a Universal Resource Locator (URL) which specifies a server and a particular document on the server. Web browsers allow a user to efficiently access information provided on many web pages at many websites by traversing these hypertext links.
Search engines are the key to finding specific information on the vast expanse of the World Wide Web. Servers may provide a mechanism for searching a collection of documents by supplying a form (for the entry of search terms) which is displayed at the web browser.
One common usage pattern of a web browser comprises the following steps: (1) A user performs a search for a term or set of terms. The search may be either an internet search engine query, an in-document find, or a site based search, as is commonly found on internet forums; (2) Based on the results of the search, the user performs a plurality of tasks such as opening new browser windows, opening new tabs, (selecting and) following links, etc; and (3) The user looks for the terms that were initially searched for in the aforementioned browser windows, tabs and linked pages.
This usage pattern, which may be termed “search and follow,” may be repeated multiple times during a single browser session. A single “search and follow” usage pattern may spawn other “search and follow” patterns related to the first pattern. Another aspect of the “search and follow” pattern is that the latest search is typically most relevant to the user's current thread of activity. Finally, searches and their related threads of activity often crisscross between unrelated web sites. Even though this pattern is widely adopted by users, current web browsers do not capitalize on this pattern to increase the usability of an operator's experience.
Some web browsers attempt to increase document usability by enabling the ability to remember previous entries into HTML forms. However, these remembered fields are restricted to text input fields only, and are often restricted on a “per-site” basis, where a user's name (for example) is remembered for siteA.com, but has to be entered manually on siteB.com. Additionally, these remembered fields are often stored in perpetuity, and over time become inaccurate.